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Ohio’s deer-gun season bonds families

Ohio’s deer-gun season, which starts today, is a bonding adventure for fathers, sons and daughters

View SlideshowRequest to buy this photoTHOMAS LEVINSON | DISPATCH photosJustin Montie, 13, and father Jim wait to see the result of Justin’s shooting of a button buck during the youth deer-gun season this month.

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JOHNSTOWN, Ohio — There’s nothing like entering the woods before dawn, staking out a spot with
gun at the ready, and anticipating that jolt of adrenaline when a deer wanders by.

To Jim Montie, there’s only one thing that improves a brisk morning in the field — and a
good-size white-tail within range: family.

Thirteen-year-old Justin Montie has been a crack hunter since age 8, when the first arrow he
ever shot at live game took down a deer, a feat repeated less than two weeks later with the first
slug from his shotgun.

Julia is a good shot with her .22-caliber rifle as a 9-year-old. She still is growing accustomed
to her pink .410-gauge shotgun. “It hurts my ears,” she says. She hopes to go on her first deer
hunt next season.

Even the Montie matriarch, Deanna, has joined her husband in the tree stand to shoot —
photographs, in her case.

The opening of Ohio’s weeklong deer-gun season today will send an estimated 420,000 hunters —
including fathers, sons and daughters — afield in pursuit of the state’s most-popular game animal.
As many as 85,000 deer are expected to be killed.

“That’s quality time with the family you can’t put a price on,” the elder Montie says. “I tell
Justin and Julia, the thrill of the kill is not why we’re out here. We’re out here to enjoy nature
and take part of it.”

But state wildlife officials fear that hunting is not the family affair it once was, as the
number of hunters decreases due in part to factors eroding the passing of hunting from one
generation to the next.

Although the number of hunting licenses issued annually is up to nearly 424,000 because of
out-of-state hunters, the number of licenses bought by Ohioans has fallen to 281,000 from 354,000
in 2000.

Leighland Arehart, the Ohio Division of Wildlife law-enforcement supervisor for central Ohio,
said hunting can be time-consuming, and time can be hard to come by amid youths’ packed schedules
and parents’ hard work to make a living.

“Time was, we grew up with someone in the family who took us hunting; that’s how we learned,”
Arehart said. “The economy is part of it now, and everyone is in a hurry. Everyone is busy.”

To encourage parents to hunt with their kids and others to mentor the children of friends, Ohio
offers apprentice hunting licenses and special youth-only hunts in which non-hunting adults
accompany them into the field.

“We have to get them interested when they’re young. We need to recruit young hunters, because we
know they will be the future of the sport and continue the hunting tradition in Ohio,” Arehart
said.

This year’s youth deer-gun hunt was Nov. 17-18, with Justin Montie claiming a button buck with a
permit at Dillon State Park in Muskingum County as his proud father watched. “It’s fun. It’s what I
love to do,” Justin said.

Jim Montie, who owns a home-remodeling and construction business, enjoys more than just the
sport of stalking the land, which includes his Licking County acreage where he bagged his biggest
buck.

“If you kill it, you eat it,” he says. The Monties haven’t bought ground beef in 12 years,
fashioning venison into steaks, jerky and ground meat.

Montie and his son will head out today to Coshocton County property where they have permission
to hunt and have spotted big bucks.

He’ll treasure the time spent with family members enjoying a shared love. “Hunting’s kind of
dying off, and I want my children to enjoy it and treasure it as much as I do.”